2. Lottie

Water sloshed against my overalls as I stepped over the wooden threshold into the stable, my arms screaming at me to put the damn bucket down. Just a few more feet, I told myself, tightening my iron grip on the handles as I made it the last little bit of the way and set it down in front of Marianne.

I'd only lost half of the water this time.

Marianne huffed out a snort as her way of saying thank you before she dunked her snout into the bucket, pushing more water onto my shoes. I sighed, knowing damn well it was what she loved to do. I worked the muscles in my hands over and over, hoping to avoid any cramps later.

"You're getting better with the bucket, Lottie," Dana chuckled as she passed behind me, reins and a saddle hanging over her arms. "Only took you, what, five months?"

I shot her a playful scowl, my braid flying back over my shoulder. "I fucking hate this bucket."

"I know, I know. It's too narrow," she parroted. "I thought you'd have gotten used to it by now."

"Not when I spent my entire life using much wider ones." I grabbed my everything-towel off the door of Marianne's stall and wiped down the front of my overalls. Reaching up to my naked neck, I asked, "You haven't seen a necklace lying around, have you?"

"Me?" Dana asked.

I leveled a glare at her. "No, I'm clearly asking Marianne. I've learned to understand her whinnies."

Marianne huffed into her water, sending more of it splashing against my feet.

"I haven't seen anything but I can keep my eye out," Dana said. "What does it look like?"

"Silver chain with a little horseshoe on it. It was, uh… it was my mom's." A pang of guilt hit me as I said it out loud. Mom died years ago and it was the little things—like that necklace—that made me feel connected to her.

"I'll let you know if I see it." Dana nodded as she grabbed a brush off the wall, chucking it to me without warning. I was barely quick enough to catch it. "Marianne looks like she needs it."

I looked back at the giant brown horse before me. Her dark blonde mane had already managed to get a couple of knots in it since I brushed it this morning. "How… ?" I mumbled, shaking my head in irritation as I slowly started to drag the brush through her hair. She hadn't even left the stable yet.

Caring for Marianne had barely been enough to keep my mind from wandering. There was a particular name that had been burned into my skull for the last twenty-odd hours that wouldn't seem to leave my head.

I'd known that sneaking into the wedding was a horrible idea. I'd heard that it was the wedding of two of Boulder's biggest names, and my curiosity had gotten the better of me. I had no idea that I would run into one of the few men I imagined—perhaps hoped—would be there and end up being attracted to him.

I'd come to Oahu to get away from the Boulder scene, if only for a little while. My relationship with my ex had ended catastrophically, and when my father suggested taking some time for myself at a ranch that belonged to one of his friends, I'd hopped on a flight the next day. I hadn't intended to meet someone from home, definitely not Hunter Harris.

But somehow it'd all fallen into my goddamn lap.

Knowing who he was, I'd found it hard to fall asleep the night before. I'd tossed and turned, his face in my mind, his knuckles on my skin, his hot breath against my ear. I dreaded to think how far I'd have gone with him if he hadn't uttered his name, and the possibilities of that clouded my mind as I stroked at Marianne's mane, detangling the little knots she'd managed to produce.

Every soft breath she made only deepened my thoughts. Would I have let him take me out there in the open? Had he even wanted to go that far? I'd heard rumors of his promiscuous and playboy nature, but surely fucking some random wedding crasher outside his friend's reception wasn't on his to-do list. Still, the way he'd towered over me as if he wanted to eat me alive…

"You can't be in here!"

The sudden outburst from Dana made me jump, the brush falling from my hand and landing directly into Marianne's stupid, narrow, water bucket.

"I—"

"This is private property," Dana snapped, her pitchfork extended toward the door.

I poked my head around the corner of Marianne's stall, curious which stray vacationer had stumbled upon the stable, and nearly lost my mind when I saw who it was. Short black hair, tanned skin, and stark green eyes took over my vision.

Hunter fucking Harris.

He stared directly at me, and I at him. Dana looked between the two of us, her fork lowering ever so slightly. "Do you know him?"

"That's a hard question to answer?—"

"She crashed my friend's wedding last night," Hunter interrupted. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, his stark white t-shirt nearly blinding in the dirt-covered stables.

Dana dropped the fork. "She did what?"

"Think I have something that belongs to you," he continued, his chin lifting toward me in one quick motion. Stepping past Dana and steering clear of her horse, Abigail, he walked straight toward me as his hand slowly pulled from his pocket.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I hissed. "And how the hell did you know I work here?"

He closed the distance, coming far too close to Marianne for her liking, but all she did was huff. His hand lifted in front of my face, and there, dangling on his pinky, was my mother's necklace. "Seems Cinderella left me with a glass slipper."

I snatched it from his hand and stuffed it into the front pocket of my overalls. "You didn't answer my question."

"I figured you'd put two and two together, since you know my name," he drawled. "I have ways of finding whoever I need to find, beautiful stranger." He leaned against the side of Marianne's stall, muscles that I hadn't been able to see through his suit now on full display. I hated that I'd be thinking about those later. "Who's this?"

I narrowed my gaze at him. "Marianne. She doesn't like strangers."

Marianne snorted before letting out a soft neigh, her snout angling toward him. Fucking traitorous bitch.

"Seems like she's pretty friendly," Hunter grinned. He stroked her gently on the top of her snout, little hairs that I needed to de-shed flying off.

I huffed out a sigh. "Look, thank you for bringing me my necklace. I really appreciate it. But I'm in the middle of work and we're not supposed to allow anyone in here, so if you could carry on with whatever the hell else you're doing in Oahu, that would be great."

A soft tsk, tskoozed from his lips as he scratched at the spot between Marianne's ears. "Trying to get rid of me already? And here I thought I'd done you a favor."

The look he leveled at me made my blood run cold. Green eyes ran along my body just as they had last night, but there was no whiff of alcohol on him this time. Granted, the manure in Marianne's stall was the dominant scent.

He sniffed at the air, almost as if he'd known exactly where my thoughts had wandered to and picked up the pitchfork that leaned against the outside of the stall.

"What are you?—"

He drove the fork into the pile of literal shit and hay behind Marianne. "Helping."

I narrowed my gaze at him again. "I'm perfectly capable of doing my own job," I snapped. I took a step toward him, reaching out for the fork, but he held it further away and out of reach.

"You sure about that?" he drawled, every syllable dripping with sarcasm as his booted foot tapped against Marianne's bucket. "Looks to me like you can't even keep hold of a brush."

Oh my God. "Maybe if you hadn't scared the shit out of me, it wouldn't have slipped from my hands."

He snorted as he shoveled the manure-laden hay into a singular pile by the front of the stall. "I thought stable hands were meant to keep a good grip on all accessories, grooming included. Granted, it's been a long time since I worked in the stables."

I crossed my arms over my chest, pretending not to notice Marianne's incessant huffing for attention. "I'll have you know, I've worked with horses for as long as I can remember, and I've been a stable hand since I was eighteen."

"Have you, now?" Hunter asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Yes. And I've got a Bachelor of Science in Equine Management and Welfare."

He leaned back, his head popping up around the side of Marianne's head, nothing but a shit-eating grin on his face. "Then what are you doing working at a random ranch in Oahu? Surely, you're better than this."

Fuck.

There was a reason I'd ran the second he'd said his name last night. I didn't need him digging into me, didn't need him putting the pieces together. My father, Brody Hammersmith, was Hunter's business mentor on all things within the equine space. Hunter knew who I was in theory, but I'd managed to keep myself out of their working relationship for the years that Dad had been tied to him.

"Running away from my problems, obviously," I mumbled. Though it seems like I'd found myself a new one.

I pulled my gloves off and stepped out of the stall, locking eyes with Dana for a split second as I made my way across the stable and toward the wheelbarrow. She wiggled her brows at me.

Don't, I mouthed.

As I wheeled it over to Marianne's stall, Hunter was already poised and ready to chuck the majority of the manure into the barrow. "Who'd you work for, then?" he asked, throwing in the scoop with a smack. "I know pretty much everyone in that scene back in Boulder."

"None of your business," I grunted as I set the wheelbarrow down on its stand. I knew the moment the name left my mouth it would be the end of me. I'd known what associating with thatname would do to me, and yet, I'd thrown myself into it anyway. "Why do you care?"

He shrugged and wiped away the small sheen of sweat that had built on his forehead, the biceps of his left arm far too taut. "I may or may not have an open position on my ranch if you were thinking of coming back to Colorado."

My boots scuffed to a stop on the concrete floor. "What?"

"The manager on the breeding side of my business is retiring," he said. "Having someone with your credentials would be ideal."

"You don't even know my name," I replied. I fidgeted with the end of my braid, twirling it around my finger to keep my hand occupied. "That's insane."

"The older guy out in the field said your name was Charlotte," he smirked.

Gerry would pay for that. I could only hope that he hadn't put two and two together as to who my father was.

"It's only a small part of my business," he continued, slapping another pile of manure into the wheelbarrow. Watching his muscles work was enough to make me drool in my bed at night, and I tried not to stare. "It could help you move on from being a stable hand to, well, wherever you want to be in the industry, I suppose."

A snake-like grin spread across his cheeks as he dropped the last scoop on top of the others.

"It could take you farther in your career."

Christ, this asshole was full of himself. I knew he wasn't wrong, knew how big the Harris name was within the industry, but he was selling it to me like he knew I couldn't say no.

He wasn't wrong.

There wasn't a world in which an opportunity like that just fell into my hands. This was something else, something wild and unpredictable and I wondered if I was dreaming. Five months was a long time to be away from home, away from Dad and my friends, and of course that itch had begun to burn whenever conversations turned toward life back in Boulder. As beautiful as Oahu was, I didn't want to be here forever.

Such an opportunity would allow me to learn, to grow, and to get back on my feet, hopefully allowing me to set up my own gig someday.

"You can't just hire me on the spot," I breathed.

"Then we'll have a proper interview," he smirked. "I fly home two days from now. Have dinner with me tomorrow, and we can talk about it, get things squared away, and sort out your return."

"You're insane," I chuckled, the words coming out more sarcastically than I intended. "You can't be serious."

He shoved the pitchfork back against the wall and took a step toward me. I could see the entirety of his barely covered chest, little flecks of manure splattered against his white t-shirt and jeans, clumps of it clinging to his boots. "You called me a beast last night. So you know who I am. And, if that"s the case, then you"d know I"m not joking, Charlotte."

"Oh, for fuck's sake, just say yes," Dana chimed in from across the stable with an aggravated huff. I should have known she could hear us.

Hunter's arrogant grin only widened.

"Fine," I sighed. "Where are we meeting?"